Slavery and Reconstruction

Records from USGenWeb

(East) Carroll Parish Plantations and Slave Owners

Sankofagen – Listing of Plantations and Plantation Owners in the Parish

If you know the name of the slaveholder, but need documentation to verify ownership of your ancestor, you’ll have to use microfilm or records onsite at the East Carroll Parish Clerk of Court. For information on what’s available, please see Genealogy Research in East Carroll Parish

These records are key to tracing one’s ancestors immediately following the Civl War and during Reconstruction. Contracts and agreements were established between former slaveowners or landowners and former slaves to ensure that the former slaves or freedman were paid for their work. Sometimes the freedman stayed at the plantation that they were enslaved on, other times they worked for other former owners or new land owners in the area. Other records include letters and correspondence, applications for rations, lists of indigent people, and more. Indexes do not exist for most of the rolls of microfilm in this collection and the lists below are not all inclusive of what is on each roll. For more on the Freedman’s Bureau, please visit the National Archives website.

M1905, Roll 33
Registers and Payrolls of Freedmen Employed on Plantations, Assumption and Carroll ParishesUnbound registers and payrolls of freedmen employed on plantations, 1864–68, are arranged alphabetically by parish. The registers give the names, ages, sex, and class of the laborer; names of former owners; and former residences of freedmen. The payrolls give similar information except that they include the freedmen’s monthly wages, the number of days worked, amount of money received, and signatures or “X.” 1866 – Carroll Parish, LA (Listing of plantations and owners during the year 1866; some 1867)

Letters and Orders Received from the Assistant Commissioner and His Staff

The three volumes of letters and orders received from the Assistant Commissioner and his staff, January 1866–December 1868, 1 (305), 2 (307), and 3 (309), are arranged chronologically and each volume has a name index.